Freaks of the deep: New marine study finds thousands of amazing new species

With its fierce teeth and ferocious looks this dragon fish is just one of the many species detailed in a new census of the ocean's depths.

A 'roll call' by the Census of Marine Life (CoML) scientists surveyed 25 key regions around the world and identified Australian and Japanese waters as the most biodiverse on Earth.

Each ocean zone contains an estimated 33,000 known forms of life, ranging from algae and single-celled protozoa to whales and sea birds.

But for every marine species of all kinds known to science, experts estimate that at least four are yet to be discovered.

A Dragon Fish, one of the many marine species that has been identified in Australian and Japanese waters. The deep sea dragonfish is a ferocious predator that inhabits the deep oceans of the world. Known scientifically as Grammatostomias flagellibarba, it has extremely large teeth

The Mediterranean was also listed as a hotspot for different kinds of species.

Waters around popular holiday resorts in southern Europe were in the top five of the biodiversity league table, along with oceans off China and the Gulf of Mexico.

A deep-sea jellyfish in Japan that, when attacked by a predator, uses bioluminescence to 'scream' for help. This amazing light show is known as a burglar alarm display

A Venus fly-trap, Actinoscyphia species,in the Gulf of Mexico at a depth of 1500m. The Gulf recently been in the headlines following the BP oil spill

A category listed as 'other vertebrates' that made up just 2 per cent of the total contained some of the best-known marine animals, including whales, sea lions, seals, walruses, turtles and sea birds.

The 'roll call' was published in the run-up to the long-awaited final report from the Census of Marine Life in October.

Almost 400 scientists from more than 80 nations are involved in the project, which aims to provide the most accurate assessment possible of the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans.

Dr Mark Costello, from the Leigh Marine Laboratory at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, lead author of the latest research, said: 'This inventory was urgently needed for two reasons.

Lambis chiragra, the Spider conch, in China. It has a very thick and heavy shell and six curved spines

Soft coral, right, in Ausyralisa and a red-lined paper bubble, left, seen off Cape Nomamisaki, Japan. This new species of hydatinid gastropod was discovered from a sperm whale carcass in the deep sea

Biologist and author Dr Nancy Knowlton, from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, US, who heads the Census coral reef project, said: 'At the end of the Census of Marine Life, most ocean organisms still remain nameless and their numbers unknown.

'This is not an admission of failure. The ocean is simply so vast that, after 10 years of hard work, we still have only snapshots, though sometimes detailed, of what the sea contains. But it is an important and impressive start.'

She added: 'The sea today is in trouble. Its citizens have no vote in any national or international body, but they are suffering and need to be heard.

'Much has changed just in the few decades that I have spent on and under the sea, but it remains a wondrous and enriching place, and with care it can become even more so.'

Scientists found that many species appeared in more than one region. The most highly travelled 'cosmopolitan' species lay at both ends of the the evolutionary scale, and included algae and protozoa as well as sea birds and mammals.

The 'Manylight Viperfish' (Chauliodus sloani), found in more than a quarter of the world's marine waters, was described as the 'everyman' of the deep ocean.

The Mediterranean had the largest number of invasive species of any region, with more than 600 immigrant varieties - 4 per cent of its total. Most had arrived from the Red Sea via the Suez Canal.

Along with other 'enclosed' sea areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico, Baltic and the Caribbean, the Mediterranean also had some of the most threatened biodiversity.

The main historic threats to marine life were listed as overfishing, lost habitat, invasive species and pollution.

Emerging threats included rising water temperature and acidification, and oxygen depletion.

A map that shows the different ocean areas covered by the census, which yielded an average of more than 10,000 species per region

A bleached section of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Australia boasts some of the planet's most diverse oceans but thousands of organisms remain unknown to science

Bathycyroe fosteri, left, often found near the mid-Atlantic ridge and Histioteuthis bonellii, right. Bathycyroe fosteri are named after Dudley Foster, pilot of the US Navy submersible Alvin who collected the first specimen

A female Gaussia princeps, a bathypelagic copepod, one of the many creatures found during the survey

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New census of the sea finds an average 10,000 species per region (but one in four are yet to be discovered)